Bible: The New Testament

Analysis of Major Characters

The Gospel According to Matthew (Matthew)

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.

The New Testament’s Relation to the Old Testament

Each of the books of the New Testament has a unique relationship to
the Old Testament and to Judaism as a whole, ranging from the very
Jewish Gospel of Matthew to the Gospel of Luke, which makes little
or no reference to the Jewish scriptures. This range is largely due
to the location and audience of the different authors of the New Testament.
Matthew’s Gospel was written for a largely Jewish group to convince
them that Jesus was the hoped-for Messiah, and so he interprets
Jesus as someone who relives the experience of Israel. For Matthew,
everything about Jesus is prophesied in the Old Testament. The Old
Testament narratives to which Matthew refers served as ways in which
early followers of Jesus could make sense out of his birth, death,
and resurrection. In contrast, Luke makes little or no reference
to the Hebrew scriptures because they would have been unfamiliar
to his largely Gentile audience.

Paul introduces yet another perspective on the Hebrew
Scriptures with his theology of “faith versus works,” which states
that through Christ we are saved “through grace alone,” not through doing
good works. Paul contrasts Christianity’s emphasis on the grace
of God and the faith of the believer with the Jewish insistence on
the law as the necessary means for salvation. Paul’s theology inaugurates
a strong anti-Jewish tradition in Christianity, which claims that
Christianity is a higher, more spiritual tradition than Judaism.
This claim is called Christian supercessionism because it is based
on the idea that the New Testament supercedes the Old Testament.
Supercessionists believe that the laws laid down in the Old Testament
are external, in the sense that they regulate human behaviors rather
than spiritual states, and that these laws become unnecessary through
Christ. Supercessionism simplifies the rich and subtle theology
of the Old Testament, which makes no such distinction between faith
and works.

Salvation for Social Outcasts

Some scholars have argued that the New Testament’s references
to sinners actually referred to those who were marginalized, poor,
cast out, orphaned, diseased, or widowed. Jesus not only promises
salvation to such sinners, but goes so far as to call their poverty
itself “blessed” throughout the Gospels. At many points in Jesus’s
ministry, he shocks mainstream Jews by associating with, ministering
to, and healing people who are cast out, poor, and sick. Some have argued
that a prominent theme in the Gospels is Jesus’s good news to such
people and an invitation to the rich to join them.

Salvation Through Faith in Christ

In his final letter to the new churches in Romans, Paul
summarizes his lifelong question about the relationship between
Jewish law, which requires certain observances and actions, and
faith in the grace offered by God through Jesus Christ, which is
given freely and without regard for good works. This issue was particularly
problematic in Rome because the early church consisted both of Jewish followers
of Christ, who observed the law, and Gentile followers, to whom
the law was relatively unknown. Paul concludes that the law is a gift
from God, and can help people become more faithful, but ultimately
we are justified by faith alone, and the grace of God is available to
both Jews and Gentiles. In the end, Paul declares that only minimal observance
of Jewish law is necessary to be a follower of Jesus—who himself,
interestingly enough, was a law-abiding Jew.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Geography

The Gospel of Mark takes us on a vivid journey through
the roads of first-century Palestine, from the small Galilean villages
to Jerusalem, where Jesus’s trial and crucifixion take place. The
shifts from location to location in the narrative are often abrupt
and hasty, but these movements serve an important purpose in that
they teach believers that Christian discipleship means following
in the footsteps of Jesus. Believers are to follow his progress
in their imaginations, as one follows a character in a story, sympathizing
with him in his progression to the cross. Jesus’s trail toward the
cross offers a warning to potential followers that discipleship
may involve persecution and suffering, and will call for unremitting
faithfulness on the part of the disciple.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Kingdom of Heaven

The longest section of Matthew’s Gospel is his “proclamation” (Matthew 4:17–16:20),
in which he issues a number of declarations about the kingdom of
heaven. Matthew likens God’s kingdom to a small mustard seed, which
has in it the potential to grow into a “tree so that the birds of
the air come and make nests in its branches,” something startlingly
different in size and appearance from its humble beginnings. Matthew’s
proclamations about the kingdom of God symbolize the tantalizing
fruits yielded by a life lived in obedience to the commandments
of Christ. His use of the phrase “kingdom of heaven” also discloses
Matthew’s Jewish roots, as in Jewish custom one could not utter
God’s name.

The Good Samaritan

In one of the New Testament’s most well known parables,
Luke tells us that Jesus used this story as the answer to a man’s
question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus describes a man lying on the
road, dying. Neither a passing priest nor a Levite helps him, because
touching a dead body was considered utterly impure. The Samaritan,
however, rescues the man, thereby breaking two social conventions—associating with
what could be a corpse, and crossing the border between the rival communities
of Jews and Samaritans. The Samaritan can be understood to symbolize
both Christ’s message that the poor and outcast are blessed, and
that Christ’s message is for Gentiles as well as Jews.

Water, Bread, Light

In John’s Gospel, Jesus is symbolized by the life-giving
matter of everyday existence: water, bread, light, and words. Water
and bread, in particular, are used repeatedly. While speaking with
a Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus tells her, “water that I will
give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal
life.” She says in reply, “[S]ir, give me this water so that I may
never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” John
uses this symbol of water to illustrate that Jesus’s gift is abundant
and life-giving.

The Olive Tree

In Romans 11:17–24,
the olive tree symbolizes the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel.
The tree, including the root and branches, is Israel. The branches
broken off are the Jews who do not believe in Jesus Christ, while
the branches grafted on are Gentiles who believe in Christ. Having
been made part of the tree only because of faith—rather than birth,
obedience to the law, or works—the Gentile believers have no reason
for pride, since the God who has grafted them on has the power to
cut them off.

The Body

In 1 Corinthians 12:12, Paul
writes about the variety of spiritual gifts that exist using the
image of the human body to convey that each of these different gifts
is needed, just as every part of the body is needed. The church
is Christ’s body. Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and
has many members, all the members of the body, though many, are
one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were
all made to drink of one Spirit.” Paul uses this symbol as a way
to deal with the difficult issue of balancing unity and diversity
in his early churches, saying that though we are all uniquely gifted
individuals, we are also all parts of the one united body of Christ.

The starting claim that the two books "Luke" and "Acts" were originally a single volume is not vindicated from any archaeological source nor by quotes from other ancient Christian writers. The real reason behind claiming they were originally a single work is to try to excuse dating the books after the fall of the temple. the script of Acts ends in abruptly with Paul in Rome, and can be dated as AD62, over two years after Festus became governor of Judea and sent him there.
The dating of the books may be commonly stated to be past AD80,... Read more→